Ahmed Mater born Saudi Arabia, 1979 Ka’aba, 2015, printed 2022 C-print Coutesy of the artist and Edge of Arabia A pre-Islamic pilgrimage site in Mecca, the Ka’ba (“cube” in Arabic) was originally a shrine containing idols of divinities. When the Prophet Muhammad and his community were exiled from Mecca to Medina in 622, the Ka’ba became the direction toward which Muslims prayed. When the Prophet captured Mecca from his rivals in 630, he cleared the Ka’ba of its polytheistic idols and made pilgrimage obligatory for all able Muslims (hajj) at least once in a lifetime. Hajj is performed annually between the eighth and thirteenth day of the last month of the Islamic calendar. In this alluring photograph, Ahmed Mater captures the atmosphere: *To see and hear the multitude of nearly three million souls-praying around the Ka’aba, reciting their invocations to Allah, their voices as one as they speak the supreme supplication, ‘Labbaika Allahumma, Labbaik!’ (Here I am; O God, at Thy command; Here I am!)-is an overwhelming reminder of the unifying principles of the hajj, the dense crowd sweeping in an almost impossible, undulating wave.”